I am looking for an affordable, easy to use DAP that is powerful enough to drive full-sized headphones, ones that may be up to 300-ohm. I take care of my mother who is very old and has dementia. But she can still learn how to perform simple operations, most of the time. The closer it operates to a standard tape deck or CD player, the better. I am thinking of using the DT880s, ATH-AD900X, or some other open back headphones. I am open to recommendations for this too.

The DAP can be portable, or transportable, I dare say, like her current plug-in-the-wall "boom box". I am thinking about the Fiio X3, but I think that would be too complex for her. She has good ears and I made the mistake of letting her listen to my setup with the DT880s. Now she is calling them her own. :-)

I am thinking of trying the X3 out. I can set it up with a long playlist of music. All she would have to understand is how to use the stop and play buttons. The power button might be expecting too much of her. I wonder if the X3 can be played at the same time as it is charging?

I am thinking of trying the X3 out. I can set it up with a long playlist of music. All she would have to understand is how to use the stop and play buttons. The power button might be expecting too much of her. I wonder if the X3 can be played at the same time as it is charging?

Thank you very much for replying. Is the software buggy or glitchy? Does it crash? How easy it is to upload songs to it? Have they implemented the organization by albums yet?

I am hoping I can make this work for my mother. She will be using it all day long, every day. I hope it turns out to be reliable.

Bob Graham

IF your getting this for your Mother she may LIke a Cowon DAP. the Cowons are not as high quality as the X3 would be, but they have wonderful Equliazation options, and assuming your mother is going to be using mainly Mp3s the Cowon seems to be optimized for MP3 users, with a plethera of Digital Equalaztion tweaks to get mp3's sounding there best

plus the OS looks really nice, and should b easy to use

I my self like Hifiman Players but they are... very basic as far as the UI goes. Nothing special to them at all, and I organize all my music by Folder Directories so I have no need for "meta data filtering"

How ever I was interested in a Cowon at one point. It seemed very user friendly!

Thank you very much for replying. Is the software buggy or glitchy? Does it crash? How easy it is to upload songs to it? Have they implemented the organization by albums yet?

I am hoping I can make this work for my mother. She will be using it all day long, every day. I hope it turns out to be reliable.

Bob Graham

The current version is very stable (2.05?), has never crashed or hung up on me. It was hard at first as the X3 didn't want to recognize the card, but after the format (accessed from the settings menu) it worked perfectly, simply drag and drop files to the card. You can listen by playlist, album, artist, or genre.